Status Updates: Navigating the Newest Literary Genre

This post is being featured today on She Writes, an international online organization serving over 20,000 writers.

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​A couple weeks ago I posted “How I Attracted 800 Facebook Fans in Two Months.” I’ve since picked up 535 fans. I’ve also counseled a writer friend who’d been stuck at 100 fans, and now, three weeks later, has over 2,000! I’m not sure how much what I shared with my friend contributed to her success, but we spoke about the importance of showing up as “me” on my author page and approaching status updates as original bits of creative writing. In my post I mentioned using all the instruments in my writer’s tool box, which I listed but didn’t discuss. I promised to do so in my next post. So here you go.
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1. Creative Process: Recognize your opportunity to create here. Consider multiple ways to manipulate this form. Stay open. See what comes through you. Cultivate an attitude of discovery and surprise. Dig for inner treasure. One way to do this is to keep a list of status updates on your desktop and tinker with them until they feel resonant and complete. Record bits of dialogue, images from dreams, insights from books you’re reading, and snippets about people and events you encounter each day.
   
   
2. Be Original: Provide unique content.  If you must quote others, at least share with your fans what you love about the quote. Add something of yours to it, such as a new perspective or slant, or a photo—something that can only be experienced on your page
   
   
3. Tell a Story: Stories are containers for change. Something happens. Movement of one kind or another takes place, usually within a character. You become a character in your status updates, like a memoirist or poet. Is there some discovery you can make? A new awareness you experience? A lesson learned? Is there some subtle shift that can take place in your status update?
   
   
4. Make a Scene: Use your novelist or memoirist chops. Draw in your fans by setting a scene. This involves showing, not telling, and the best way to do this is by engaging the senses. What do you see, hear, touch, smell, taste, or feel? Describe it.
   
   
5. Details: You know the expression, “God is in the details”? It’s true.  As writers, we know the importance of speaking from an emotion, rather than about one. We rely on the power details have to convey meaning. Be specific.
   
   
6. Honesty: Tell the truth, which is not to say you have to tell things exactly the way they happened; your job is to capture your emotional truth.
   
   
7. Transparency: Don’t be afraid to share from you heart and be vulnerable. This is a powerful place from which to share. Your fans will resonate with your challenges if you present yourself as the real, struggling human being you are. Be relatable.
   
   
8. Brevity: Bring out your inner poet. Get to the point. No room for clutter, especially in your tweets! Slash adjectives and adverbs; use muscular nouns and verbs. Question whether you need forms of the verb “to be,” which are often unnecessary, as is the article, “the.” Avoid using the same word twice in a post unless it’s a conscious creative choice.
   
   
9. Make Music: Again, look to your inner poet. Read your posts aloud. Consider the rhythm, meter, and cadence of your words. This is a visceral, not a cerebral, process.
   
   
10. Write Like You Talk: Be accessible. Don’t try to impress or sound like another writer you admire. Be yourself. Readers want to hear your voice. Be you. You are enough.
    
    
11. Narrative Voice: Experiment with first-person narration. A first-person narrator is a witness who speaks from her heart. This voice is intimate and compelling. Second-person narration works in prescriptive writing, but it runs the risk of sounding preachy in status updates. Same with the pronoun “we,” which when used inappropriately, or too often, sounds presumptuous.
    
    
12. Photos: Photograph or hunt for images that stir or inspire you to share on your page. Research shows that people respond to images more than words. I like combining the two. As a writer, I want to share all kinds of images and ideas. Pinterest and Instagram are all about this, though I haven’t gotten there yet.
    
    
13. Be Positive/Inspire: I’m not saying you need to be Pollyannaish or saccharine—don’t do that! I detest fake sweeteners. But if you come from a place inside yourself that is deeply connected and inspired, people will feel it and respond. Life is filled with negative energy and emotions. Why perpetuate it? Why not make a positive contribution? Anything honest and heartfelt is positive, even if you’re dealing with a struggle or challenge. A work of art is positive if it’s done with integrity and if it tells the truth. Your themes don’t have to be happy for your posts to inspire fans.
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14. Stay Relevant: At the end of the day, you’re building your author platform and looking for fans that will resonate with your writing—people who, when the time comes, will buy your book. Focus your status updates on the subjects your book covers. You can stray here and there, provide a personal aside, but you want fans hungry for what you have to say!

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